Bullying laws need balance

Bullying in the workplace is undoubtedly a serious issue and there will be individuals justified in taking legal action if the anti-bullying law proposals by a parliamentary committee this week are ever put into effect. But employer groups are also right to be fearful that the new rules will create major extra costs on top of existing onerous, industrial relations obligations. They have good reason to fear that a new avenue for legal action will hand another weapon to employees who have been dismissed, to attack their former employers.

The report by the standing committee on education and employment recommends a new national definition of bullying, an advice hotline, a whole new process for adjudicating bullying claims, as well as allowing the allegedly bullied to “seek remedies through an adjudicative process". But the draft policy is surely excessive. According to the dissenting opinions, not giving employees enough work and eye-rolling could constitute bullying under the draft code that the majority want to see implemented.

The Labor government says it recognises business as an engine of growth but this is another example where, in practice, it uses businesses as agents of social policy, by piling more and more regulatory imposts on them. The draft anti-discrimination policy released last week, for example, shifted the burden of proof onto companies to demonstrate that complaints about discrimination made against them are false. Other goals being publicly contemplated include quotas for women in management and on boards and getting more disabled people into jobs.

These are all worthy aims but they are being piled onto business on top of industrial relations rules, including on unfair dismissal, and potential adverse action legal suits. While insisting on this heavy regulatory overlay for companies, the federal government has shown no interest in ending illegal union blockages or toughening governance laws for unions to end egregious instances of corruption now coming to light. The government should reduce the business sector’s regulatory burden, and make unions obey basic governance rules.